hidden costs of AI voice agents India
Every cost line an AI voice agent in India can bill you for, including ours.
Dvaarik voice calls cost ₹2/min, with a ₹2,000 per 30-day phone number recharge and 18% GST charged when you load credits — and that is the complete list. There is no subscription, no monthly minimum, no per-agent licence, no credit-to-minute ratio to decode, no language surcharge inside the Indian set, and no markup on WhatsApp, which Meta bills to your own account directly. Custom setup is ₹40,000 and free for our 10 founding clients, in return for the Care Plan for the first 3 months at the founding rate of ₹5,000/month and an honest testimonial plus a short case study after go-live. Fixed lines still move your real per-minute number, so we do the division in public: on our own arithmetic a first month at 1,500 minutes lands at ₹6.67/min, and from month four at 2,500 minutes with the Care Plan dropped it lands at ₹2.80/min — both exclusive of GST, both with the working shown on this page.
What it costs with Dvaarik
₹2
Voice from per minute, permanent
₹2,000
Phone number recharge per 30 days
18%
GST added when you load credits
₹0
Markup on WhatsApp — Meta bills you
Send us your monthly call volume on WhatsApp and we will work out your real monthly number before you commit to anything.
Which cost lines does an AI voice agent in India actually bill you for?
Ten lines that turn a headline per-minute rate into a monthly invoice. Take this list to any provider, including us, and ask the question in the third column.
| Cost line | How it shows up on a price card | Question to ask before you sign |
|---|---|---|
| Setup / onboarding | A one-time fee, sometimes published on a different page from the rate card, sometimes named without an amount | Is it charged, waived, or credited back — and what am I giving up if it is waived? |
| Monthly plan or minimum | A base fee you pay whether the phone rings or not | Can I place a single call without buying a monthly plan? |
| Credit-to-minute ratio | Credits that are not rupees — for example 2 credits or 8 credits per minute | How many credits does one minute burn, and what is one credit worth in rupees? |
| Number rental or recharge | A monthly line rental, or a separate carrier bill you have to arrange yourself | Is the phone number inside the per-minute rate or beside it? |
| Telephony carrier markup | A per-minute carrier charge on top of the platform rate, typically higher for India than for the US | Is the quoted per-minute rate all-in, or is telephony billed separately? |
| Language and voice quality | Regional languages gated to a higher plan, or a premium voice priced above the base one | Does my customer's language change my rate or my plan? |
| Call recording | A per-minute surcharge applied to recorded calls, or bundled into the rate | What does recording cost per minute, and can I switch it off? |
| Integrations, seats and concurrency | One-time integration fees, per-user charges, per-concurrent-line charges | What does a second simultaneous call cost, and what does my CRM connection cost? |
| Billing rounding | Whole minutes versus to-the-second, which changes the bill materially on short calls | Is a 40-second call billed as 40 seconds or as a full minute? |
| GST | 18%, sometimes stated on the page, often not stated at all | Are the published figures inclusive or exclusive of GST, and at what point is it charged? |
Compiled from the published pricing pages of sixteen Indian and global voice AI providers, checked 21 Jul 2026.
What do Indian AI voice agent providers publish as their entry cost?
Every figure below is quoted in the provider's own published terms, from their own pages. We have not derived effective per-minute rates for anyone but ourselves, because a number a provider does not publish is not their price.
| Provider (as published) | Published entry per-minute rate | Monthly plan or minimum to start? | Setup / onboarding as published | GST stated on the page? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dvaarik | ₹2/min, Bharat Standard, permanent rather than a founding discount | No plan; minimum first credit load ₹10,000, later top-ups from ₹500 | ₹40,000, free for our 10 founding clients on the stated trade | Yes — all prices exclusive of GST, 18% charged at credit load |
| Ravan.ai (Agni) | ₹8/min Starter overage, ₹6/min Growth, ₹4/min Scale; "upto ₹2/min" on Enterprise, described on their homepage as the volume rate at 10,000+ minutes | Yes — Starter ₹2,999/month including 300 minutes | None published | Yes — "All prices exclude 18% GST" |
| VaniAgent | ₹4.5–5.5/min on the Metered Credits tier | Yes — Metered Credits ₹4,999/month; flat unlimited plans from ₹21,999/month with a 3-month minimum | Not published | Yes — "All prices exclude 18% GST" |
| HuskyVoice.AI | ₹4/min, published as "Enterprise volume pricing as low as ₹4/min", not as an entry rate | Yes — ₹1,999/month including 100 voice credits, where "2 credits = 1 minute of AI call" | "None. Setup takes under 10 minutes." | Not found on the pages we read |
| ConnectAI | ₹4/minute, billed as 8 credits from a clinic credit wallet | Yes — ₹800/month standalone, or ₹499/month as an add-on to the ₹2,499/month Suite | One-time ₹1,000 clinic onboarding for new clinics | Not stated anywhere on their pricing page |
| Botsense | ₹9/min Starter, ₹7/min Growth, ₹5/min Enterprise | No — the AI calling page states "No monthly commitment" | "no setup fees" on the AI calling page; the main pricing page has "One-Time Setup (Required)" at ₹15,000–₹25,000 for its separate WhatsApp product | Not stated — "GST" does not appear on the AI calling page |
| Trikon | ₹5/min flat, with telephony billed separately by your own carrier | No — "No subscription, no setup fees, no per-seat charges, no annual contracts" | ₹0 | Not found on the pages we read |
| Dhiyo AI Labs | "starts at ₹5/min", with "Final pricing may depend on call volume, setup and workflow requirements" | Not published; the pricing page shows all tiers as "Custom" | Not published | Not found on the pages we read |
| Edesy | ₹6/minute on Pay As You Go plus telephony at $0.07/min; ₹4–6/min across their tiers | No — minimum recharge ₹500; optional plans at ₹1,499–₹14,999/month buy the rate down | ₹20,000 Onboarding Package, which their page says becomes ₹20,000 of credits with no expiry | Not found on the pages we read |
| Aixclerate | ₹7/min, published as the overage rate beyond the plan bundle rather than a standalone rate | Yes — Starter ₹9,999/month including 500 minutes | Not published; setup is described as included | Not found on the pages we read |
| Scalify Labs | ₹0.40/min headline, on a table their own page labels as estimates requiring a formal quote, with voice minutes billed on top of a monthly plan | Contradictory on their own site: the service page says plans start ₹15,000/month, the blog says minimum engagement is 10,000 minutes/month (₹4,000) with a 3-month commitment | ₹15,000–₹40,000 one-time | Not found on the pages we read |
| MyOperator | None published — extra usage is ₹8 per conversation, not per minute | Yes — SUV AI - Voice ₹10,000/month including 2,000 minutes, billed annually | ₹20,000 one-time Dedicated Onboarding | Yes — "All plans are billed annually. GST applicable." |
| Bolna AI | 6.00¢ per minute, shown on their own page as ₹5.52 by their own currency conversion, plus provider and telephony costs and a platform fee whose amount is not published | No — prepaid credits from $10, described as "No commitment" | Not published | Not found on the pages we read; priced in USD |
| Vapi | $0.05/min, under a heading reading "Vapi Hosting Cost / Excludes Model Provider Costs" | No monthly platform fee published on the Build plan | Not published | Not found on the pages we read; priced in USD with no India pricing page |
| Retell AI | $0.07–$0.31/min for the platform stack, excluding telephony | No — "No minimums, no contracts, no surprises" | None published | Not found on the pages we read; priced in USD |
| Sarvam AI (Samvaad) | None published — the conversational agents page carries no price | Not published; every route on the product page is "Contact Us" | Not published | Not found on the pages we read |
| SquadStack | None published — no numeric price appears on any page we read | Not published; "pricing is shared after the discovery call", and the entry tier carries a 90-day commitment | "A one-time setup fee applies for each use-case." — amount not stated | Not found on the pages we read |
Published rates as checked 21 Jul 2026, from each provider's own pages. Competitor pricing changes without notice — verify on the provider's own page before you decide.
What is Dvaarik's complete cost list with nothing left out?
Every line we can charge you, including the ones that do not flatter us. All figures exclusive of GST.
| Line | Price | What it actually is |
|---|---|---|
| Custom setup | ₹40,000 | Free for our 10 founding clients, in return for the Care Plan for the first 3 months at the founding rate and an honest testimonial plus short case study after go-live. |
| AI voice calls — Bharat Standard | ₹2/min | 22+ Indian languages and English at the base rate. Simple per-minute billing. Permanent price, not a founding discount. |
| AI voice calls — Studio HD | ₹3/min | An optional higher-fidelity voice. You choose it; the base advertised rate stays ₹2/min. |
| AI voice calls — Global, 99 languages | ₹4–5/min | Only if you need languages outside the Indian set. |
| AI voice calls — Ultra realtime | ₹10/min | The fastest realtime voice. Most Indian businesses never need it. |
| Call recording | +₹0.10/min | Added only on the calls you choose to record. |
| AI chat conversation | ₹2/conversation | One 24-hour conversation window on website, WhatsApp or Instagram, however many messages it takes. |
| Phone number recharge | ₹2,000/30 days | Your dedicated number plus one concurrent call line, auto-debited from credits. Needed only if your agent has a real phone number. |
| Extra concurrent line | ₹1,500/30 days | Each extra line lets the agent handle one more simultaneous call. |
| Extra phone number | ₹750/30 days | Each additional number on the same agent. |
| Care Plan | ₹5,000/month | Founding rate locked for 6 months against a list price of ₹12,000/month. Required for the first 3 months as part of the founding trade, optional from month 4. Debited from credits. |
| Minimum first credit load | ₹10,000 | Month one debits ₹2,000 number recharge and ₹5,000 Care Plan, leaving roughly ₹3,000 — about 1,500 voice minutes at ₹2/min. |
| Later top-ups | from ₹500 | Credits never expire. At zero balance everything pauses gracefully; there is no surprise invoice and no overdraft. |
| GST | 18% on credit loads | All prices here are exclusive of GST. A ₹10,000 load is billed ₹11,800: ₹10,000 usable plus ₹1,800 GST. |
| Billing rounding | Whole minutes | A 40-second call bills as one minute at ₹2. Rounding up is real money on short calls, and we would rather you knew before you signed. |
| WhatsApp message charges | ₹0 markup | Meta bills your own WhatsApp account directly at Meta's published rates. That bill never passes through us. |
| Commission on money collected | ₹0 | Payment links settle into your own account. We take no cut of your revenue. |
Dvaarik's own published figures, checked 21 Jul 2026. Prices exclusive of GST; 18% applies at the point of loading credits.
What does a Dvaarik month cost per minute at different call volumes?
Fixed lines divided by minutes actually used. This is our own arithmetic on our own published numbers, shown with the inputs so you can check it. We have not run this calculation for any competitor, because a derived figure is not their published price.
| Scenario | Fixed lines that month | Voice at ₹2/min | Total ex-GST | Effective per minute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month 1 — 1,500 minutes on the minimum first load | ₹2,000 number + ₹5,000 Care Plan = ₹7,000 | ₹3,000 | ₹10,000 | ₹6.67/min |
| Months 2–3 — 1,000 minutes | ₹7,000 | ₹2,000 | ₹9,000 | ₹9.00/min |
| Months 2–3 — 2,500 minutes | ₹7,000 | ₹5,000 | ₹12,000 | ₹4.80/min |
| Months 2–3 — 5,000 minutes | ₹7,000 | ₹10,000 | ₹17,000 | ₹3.40/min |
| Month 4 onwards, Care Plan dropped — 1,000 minutes | ₹2,000 | ₹2,000 | ₹4,000 | ₹4.00/min |
| Month 4 onwards, Care Plan dropped — 2,500 minutes | ₹2,000 | ₹5,000 | ₹7,000 | ₹2.80/min |
| Month 4 onwards, Care Plan dropped — 5,000 minutes | ₹2,000 | ₹10,000 | ₹12,000 | ₹2.40/min |
| Month 4 onwards, Care Plan dropped — 10,000 minutes | ₹2,000 | ₹20,000 | ₹22,000 | ₹2.20/min |
Our own arithmetic on our own published figures, checked 21 Jul 2026, all exclusive of GST — add 18% at the point of loading credits if you cannot claim input tax credit. Assumes the Bharat Standard ₹2/min voice, no call recording, one number and one concurrent line.
Which providers publish extra charges for recording, seats, concurrency or integrations?
Add-ons are where a comparable headline rate stops being comparable. Each figure is quoted in the provider's own published terms.
| Provider (as published) | Add-on | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| Dvaarik | Call recording | +₹0.10/min, only on calls you choose to record |
| Dvaarik | Extra concurrent call line | ₹1,500/30 days |
| Dvaarik | Extra phone number | ₹750/30 days |
| Aixclerate | Call recording | ₹0.20/min in India |
| Aixclerate | Additional concurrency | ₹499 |
| Aixclerate | Additional business number | ₹699 |
| Ravan.ai (Agni) | Extra knowledge base | ₹799 per knowledge base per month |
| Ravan.ai (Agni) | Knowledge base live retrieval | ₹1/min |
| Ravan.ai (Agni) | Agent Memory | ₹2/min |
| Scalify Labs | CRM / LMS integration development | ₹15,000–₹50,000 one-time, listed on their pricing blog under "Typically charged extra" |
| MyOperator | Extra user seat | ₹2,000/user |
| MyOperator | Extra AI agent | ₹10,000/agent |
| MyOperator | Dedicated onboarding | ₹20,000 one-time |
| MyOperator | 1800 toll-free number | Starts at ₹500/month |
| MyOperator | Auto-dialer | Starts at ₹700/user/month |
| Retell AI | Extra concurrency beyond the first 20 | $8 per concurrency per month |
| Retell AI | Branded call | +$0.10 per outbound call |
| Retell AI | PII removal | +$0.01/min |
| Retell AI | Verified phone number | $10 per number per month plus a one-time $10 fee |
| Vapi | Extra call concurrency beyond the first 10 | $10 per line per month |
| Vapi | HIPAA compliance | $2,000/month |
| Vapi | Zero Data Retention | $1,000/month |
Published rates as checked 21 Jul 2026, quoted from each provider's own pricing pages.
What does an AI voice agent in India actually cost per minute?
There is no single answer, and anyone who gives you one is quoting a headline rather than an invoice. We read the published pricing pages of sixteen Indian and global providers on 21 Jul 2026 before writing this. Published entry per-minute rates run from ₹0.40/min at Scalify Labs — a figure their own page labels an estimate that needs a formal quote, and one their service page bills on top of a monthly plan starting ₹15,000/month — up to ₹9/min on Botsense's Starter plan. MyOperator publishes no per-minute rate at all, only ₹10,000/month including 2,000 minutes with extra usage at ₹8 per conversation. Sarvam AI's Samvaad agent page carries no price of any kind, and SquadStack publishes no numeric price anywhere, saying instead that "pricing is shared after the discovery call". MyOperator's own blog describes the market as ranging "from roughly ₹2/min on self-serve tools to enterprise contracts with no published rates". What lifts your real number is almost never the per-minute rate itself. It is the plan floor underneath it, the one-time setup on top of it, the number rental beside it, and the credit ratio in front of it. Our answer is to publish every line we can charge you, do the division on our own numbers, and show you the months where our own effective rate sits well above ₹2.
Cost line one: setup and onboarding, and who actually waives it
Setup is the line that most changes what year one costs, and it is published inconsistently across the market. On the pages we read on 21 Jul 2026, HuskyVoice.AI answers its own FAQ with "None. Setup takes under 10 minutes." Trikon publishes "No setup fees. No annual lock-in. No surprises." ConnectAI publishes a one-time ₹1,000 onboarding fee for new clinics. MyOperator publishes Dedicated Onboarding at ₹20,000 as a one-time fee. Edesy sells a ₹20,000 Onboarding Package and states the fee becomes platform credits with no expiry. Scalify Labs' own comparison table puts its setup at ₹15,000–₹40,000 one-time. SquadStack publishes the sentence "A one-time setup fee applies for each use-case." without ever stating the amount. Botsense's AI calling page says there are no setup fees, while its main pricing page carries a section headed "One-Time Setup (Required)" at ₹15,000 and ₹25,000 for its separate WhatsApp platform product — two products on one domain, so check which page your quote came from. Ravan.ai, VaniAgent, Aixclerate, Bolna AI, Vapi, Retell AI and Dhiyo AI Labs publish no setup figure at all, which is an absence rather than a stated zero. Dvaarik's custom setup is ₹40,000, and it is free for our 10 founding clients — not as a discount but as a trade we state plainly: you keep the Care Plan for your first 3 months at the founding rate of ₹5,000/month, and you give us an honest testimonial and a short case study after go-live.
Cost line two: the monthly plan floor you cannot switch off
The most common way a published per-minute rate stops describing your bill is a base fee you pay whether the phone rings or not. On the cards we checked, VaniAgent lists its metered per-minute tier at ₹4,999/month with per-minute burn of ₹4.5–5.5/min, and its flat unlimited-calling plans from ₹21,999/month with a 3-month minimum commitment. Aixclerate's Starter is ₹9,999/month including 500 minutes, with ₹7/min beyond the bundle. MyOperator's SUV AI - Voice is ₹10,000/month including 2,000 minutes, and its page states "All plans are billed annually. GST applicable." Ravan.ai's Starter is ₹2,999/month including 300 minutes with ₹8/min overage, and its ₹2/min figure appears on the Enterprise tier, qualified on their homepage as the volume rate at 10,000+ minutes. ConnectAI is ₹800/month standalone, or ₹499/month as an add-on to its ₹2,499/month Suite, which their page says unlocks the receptionist before any talk-time is billed. Scalify Labs' service page puts plans at ₹15,000/month with voice minutes billed separately on top. Others publish no floor at all: Botsense's AI calling page says "No monthly commitment", Trikon says "No subscription", Bolna AI says "No commitment", and Retell AI says "No minimums, no contracts, no surprises." Dvaarik has no monthly plan to buy at any point. A quiet month costs you the ₹2,000 number recharge, whatever minutes you actually used, and — during your first three months as a founding client — the ₹5,000 Care Plan that is the trade for the free build.
Cost line three: credit-to-minute ratios you have to decode yourself
A credit is only comparable to a rupee if somebody tells you the ratio. HuskyVoice.AI publishes ₹1,999/month for its entry plan and states in the same feature list that it includes "100 Voice Credits included (2 credits = 1 minute of AI call)" — so two credits leave your balance for every minute of talk time, and you have to apply that ratio yourself before their card can be compared with anyone else's. ConnectAI does this well and deserves credit for it: their page publishes "Talk-time is billed at ₹4 per minute (8 credits)", giving the ratio and the rupee rate side by side so no arithmetic is needed. MyOperator's FAQ refers to overage being billed "at the published credit rates" while no credit rate card appears on the pricing page. Bolna AI's pricing page shows a standard rate of "6.00¢ (₹5.52) per minute" using its own currency conversion, and its documentation separately says total call cost is made of voice AI processing, telephony charges and "a flat per-minute fee charged by Bolna on top of your provider costs" whose amount is not published. We deliberately have not published derived per-minute figures for any of these providers, because a number they do not publish is not their price. Do that division yourself before you sign. Dvaarik credits are simply rupees: ₹1 of credit is ₹1, and a ₹2/min call debits ₹2.
Cost line four: the phone number, and the telecom markup beside it
A per-minute rate that excludes telephony is not your landed cost, and India is where that gap gets widest. Retell AI bills telephony separately from its platform rate and offers India carrier options in its pricing calculator, which renders rates client-side rather than in the page source; we read conflicting figures for the India options and so quote none of them here. Trikon states plainly that "Telephony/DID numbers are billed separately by your carrier" and that you bring your own, so its flat ₹5/min sits above a carrier bill. Edesy publishes "₹6 / minute + telephony $0.07/min". Ravan.ai advertises "all-in from ₹2/min" in marketing copy while publishing third-party telephony pass-through rates on its own pricing page. Vapi publishes its $0.05/min under a heading that reads "Vapi Hosting Cost / Excludes Model Provider Costs", with the plan bullet "Model costs are passed on to customer" — so the speech and language costs sit on top of that figure. Others bundle a number in: HuskyVoice.AI's ₹1,999 plan lists one Indian phone number, VaniAgent includes one phone number on two of its tiers without publishing its standalone cost, and Aixclerate includes one Indian business number with additional numbers at ₹699. Dvaarik's ₹2/min also excludes the number, and we would rather say so than call the rate all-in: the number and one concurrent call line cost ₹2,000 per 30 days, auto-debited from the same credit balance. If your balance cannot cover it, the number pauses and a top-up resumes it, which is the whole reason there is never a surprise invoice.
Cost line five: languages, voice quality and call recording
The language your customer speaks can quietly change your rate or your plan. Ravan.ai gates languages by plan, publishing "Hindi + English (Starter) · All 30+ Indian languages (Growth+)" — so needing Tamil can mean ₹5,999/month instead of ₹2,999/month. Botsense's Starter is "Hindi + English support", with "10+ languages including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi" appearing on Growth. Recording is its own line: Aixclerate publishes call recording at ₹0.20/min, while Trikon includes recording inside its "One flat ₹5/min — platform, LLM, STT, TTS, recording, dashboard, transfer." Retell AI publishes per-minute add-ons including advanced denoising, safety guardrails and PII removal. In fairness, two of the providers we read publish a larger Indian-language count than ours — VaniAgent states 27 Indian languages and Ravan.ai states 30+, against our 22+. What differs is whether the language changes the price. At Dvaarik, all 22+ Indian languages and English run at the ₹2/min Bharat Standard rate. Where a fuller breakdown is warranted: Bharat Standard ₹2/min, Studio HD ₹3/min, Global covering 99 languages ₹4–5/min, Ultra realtime ₹10/min, and call recording at +₹0.10/min only on calls you choose to record. The base advertised rate is always ₹2/min.
Cost line six: integrations, seats, concurrency and enterprise add-ons
The second simultaneous call is a cost line almost nobody checks before signing. Vapi's Build plan publishes "10 call concurrency ($10 per line/month)", plus HIPAA at $2,000/month and Zero Data Retention at $1,000/month. Retell AI includes 20 concurrent calls and then charges $8 per concurrency per month, $8 per knowledge base per month beyond the first ten, $2/month for a phone number, and $10/month plus a one-time $10 fee for a verified number. Ravan.ai publishes an extra knowledge base at ₹799 per month, knowledge-base live retrieval at ₹1/min and Agent Memory at ₹2/min, each stacking on the per-minute rate of whichever tier you are on. Aixclerate publishes additional concurrency at ₹499 and an additional business number at ₹699. MyOperator publishes extra users at ₹2,000/user, extra AI agents at ₹10,000/agent, an account manager at ₹15,000/month, managed services at ₹50,000/month, an auto-dialer from ₹700/user/month and a 1800 toll-free number from ₹500/month. Scalify Labs' pricing blog lists CRM and LMS integration development at ₹15,000–₹50,000 one-time under the heading "Typically charged extra". Dvaarik has no per-seat charge and no per-agent licence — your integrations are built inside the ₹40,000 custom setup, which is free for founding clients. The only capacity lines we charge are an extra concurrent line at ₹1,500 per 30 days and an extra phone number at ₹750 per 30 days.
Cost line seven: GST, and why ₹10,000 of credit is billed ₹11,800
Eighteen per cent is a large number to leave off a pricing page. Of the providers we checked on 21 Jul 2026, three state their position plainly: VaniAgent and Ravan.ai both publish "All prices exclude 18% GST", and MyOperator publishes "All plans are billed annually. GST applicable." For two more we can report a documented silence rather than an assumption: ConnectAI states no GST treatment anywhere on its pricing page, and on Botsense's AI calling page the words "GST", "tax", "inclusive" and "exclusive" do not appear at all. For the rest we are not going to assert what a page does not say — that is a question to put to the provider in writing before you pay. Dvaarik quotes every price on this page exclusive of GST, and 18% is charged once at the point of loading credits rather than call by call. In practice that means a ₹10,000 credit load is billed ₹11,800: ₹10,000 usable credit plus ₹1,800 GST. If your business is GST-registered, that ₹1,800 is normally input tax credit rather than a sunk cost — check your own position with your CA. We do not add a separate platform fee, an activation fee, or any percentage on top of your credit balance, because there is no such line in our pricing.
What a Dvaarik month actually costs per minute, including the bits that flatter us least
Fixed lines spread across usage, so the honest way to answer "what does it cost" is to divide, and to do it at low volume where the answer looks worst. On the minimum first load of ₹10,000, month one debits ₹2,000 for the number and ₹5,000 for the Care Plan, leaving roughly ₹3,000 — about 1,500 voice minutes at ₹2/min. That is an effective ₹6.67 per minute exclusive of GST, or ₹7.87 including it, and it is more than three times the headline rate. In months two and three the Care Plan is still running at ₹5,000, so 1,000 minutes works out to ₹9.00/min, 2,500 minutes to ₹4.80/min and 5,000 minutes to ₹3.40/min. From month four, the founding trade's three required months having run, the Care Plan becomes optional; drop it and your fixed cost falls to the ₹2,000 recharge, putting 1,000 minutes at ₹4.00/min, 2,500 at ₹2.80/min and 10,000 at ₹2.20/min. Two more things we would rather you heard from us: billing is whole minutes, so a 40-second call bills as one minute at ₹2, and Retell AI's page is more granular here in publishing that each call is tracked to the nearest second. Against that, three lines never appear on a Dvaarik invoice at all — WhatsApp messages, which Meta bills to your own account with zero markup from us; any commission on payments your agent collects, which settle into your own account; and any charge for credits going stale, because they never expire. If you want this priced against your actual call volume rather than a table, send us your numbers on WhatsApp at +91 93923 98750 and we will do the division with you, or test the live agent first at app.dvaarik.com/dvaarik-ai.
Questions buyers ask about cost
How much does an AI voice agent really cost per minute in India?
On the published price cards we checked on 21 Jul 2026, Indian providers advertise entry per-minute rates from ₹0.40/min at Scalify Labs — on a table their own page labels as estimates, with voice minutes billed on top of a monthly plan starting ₹15,000/month — up to ₹9/min on Botsense's Starter plan, while MyOperator, Sarvam AI's Samvaad agent and SquadStack publish no per-minute rate at all. What you actually pay depends less on that headline than on four things beside it: whether a monthly plan is mandatory, whether a one-time setup applies, whether the phone number sits inside the rate, and how many credits one minute burns. Dvaarik is ₹2/min at the Bharat Standard rate with no plan and no monthly minimum, plus a ₹2,000 per 30-day number recharge. On our own arithmetic, a first month at 1,500 minutes lands at ₹6.67/min and a month-four scenario at 2,500 minutes lands at ₹2.80/min, both exclusive of GST.
Is ₹2 per minute the real price, or does it climb once the fees are added?
₹2/min is the real rate for the call itself, and it is permanent rather than a founding discount. What sits beside it is published in full on this page: ₹2,000 per 30 days for the phone number and one concurrent call line, the Care Plan at ₹5,000/month for the first 3 months if you come in as a founding client, and 18% GST when you load credits. There is no platform fee, no activation fee, no per-agent licence, no per-seat charge and no credit ratio to decode, because Dvaarik credits are simply rupees. Since those fixed lines are spread across however many minutes you use, your effective rate falls as volume rises — the volume table above shows exactly where it lands at 1,000, 2,500, 5,000 and 10,000 minutes, including the months where it is well above ₹2.
Are there hidden costs with Dvaarik?
No, and the table on this page is the whole list: setup, voice per minute by voice option, call recording, chat per conversation, number recharge, extra lines, extra numbers, the Care Plan, the minimum first credit load, top-ups and GST. Three things we would rather tell you than have you discover: billing is whole minutes, so a 40-second call bills as one minute at ₹2; the Care Plan is required for your first 3 months as part of the founding trade and only becomes optional from month 4; and the minimum first credit load is ₹10,000, of which ₹7,000 is consumed in month one by the number recharge and the Care Plan. WhatsApp message charges never appear on a Dvaarik invoice at all, because Meta bills your own WhatsApp account directly and we add zero markup.
Is Dvaarik cheaper than a monthly AI voice agent plan in India?
It depends on your volume, and the honest answer is that a bundled plan can win at high usage. What differs structurally is that there is no Dvaarik plan to buy, so a quiet month costs you the ₹2,000 number recharge plus only the minutes you used. For comparison, on the cards we checked VaniAgent lists its metered per-minute tier at ₹4,999/month, Aixclerate's Starter is ₹9,999/month including 500 minutes, MyOperator's SUV AI - Voice is ₹10,000/month including 2,000 minutes billed annually, and Ravan.ai's Starter is ₹2,999/month including 300 minutes. We will not tell you nobody is cheaper: Ravan.ai advertises "all-in from ₹2/min", with ₹2/min appearing on its Enterprise tier as the volume rate at 10,000+ minutes, and Scalify Labs publishes a ₹0.40/min headline on a table it labels as estimates, with voice minutes billed on top of a plan. What we can say precisely is about the terms rather than the number: ₹2/min from the very first minute — no subscription, no minimum volume, no lock-in — and no setup cost at all for founding clients.
What does the ₹10,000 minimum first credit load actually include?
₹10,000 of usable credit, billed at ₹11,800 once 18% GST is added at the point of loading. In month one, ₹2,000 is auto-debited for your phone number and one concurrent call line and ₹5,000 for the Care Plan at the founding rate, leaving roughly ₹3,000 — about 1,500 voice minutes at ₹2/min, or about 1,500 chat conversations at ₹2 each. After that, top-ups start at ₹500 and credits never expire. If your balance reaches zero, everything pauses gracefully and a top-up resumes it, so there is no overdraft and no surprise invoice.
Does 18% GST make ₹2 per minute actually ₹2.36 per minute?
In cash terms yes, if you cannot claim input tax credit. All Dvaarik prices are quoted exclusive of GST, and 18% is charged once when you load credits rather than call by call, so a ₹10,000 load is billed ₹11,800 — ₹10,000 usable plus ₹1,800 GST. If your business is GST-registered, that ₹1,800 is normally input tax credit rather than a sunk cost; check your own position with your CA. We spell this out because many Indian voice AI pricing pages do not: of the providers we checked on 21 Jul 2026, VaniAgent, Ravan.ai and MyOperator address GST on the page, ConnectAI states no GST treatment anywhere on its pricing page, and on Botsense's AI calling page the words "GST", "tax", "inclusive" and "exclusive" do not appear at all. For the remaining providers we will not assert what their pages do not say — ask them in writing before you pay.
What does the Care Plan include, and can I cancel it?
The Care Plan is ₹5,000/month at the founding rate, locked for 6 months against a list price of ₹12,000/month, and it is debited from your credits rather than billed separately. It covers uptime and call-quality monitoring, agent tuning as your business changes, campaign and pricing setup help, a monthly performance report, priority WhatsApp support with the founder, unlimited Instagram automations, and scheduled calling campaigns over your own lead lists. For founding clients it is required for the first 3 months — that is the trade for the free ₹40,000 build — and it becomes optional from month 4, cancellable any time after that. Drop it in month 4 and your fixed monthly cost falls to the ₹2,000 number recharge, which is what takes 2,500 minutes down to an effective ₹2.80/min.
Who pays the WhatsApp message charges?
Meta does the billing, directly to your own WhatsApp account, at Meta's own published conversation rates, and Dvaarik adds zero markup on top. That bill never passes through us and never appears on a Dvaarik invoice, which also means we have no way to inflate it. For comparison, Botsense's pricing page states that "All prices exclude Meta WhatsApp conversation charges (paid directly to Meta)", and MyOperator's pricing page notes that Meta charges are additional alongside its own WhatsApp rate card for Indian destination numbers. Worth asking any provider plainly: do you resell Meta conversations at a markup, or pass them straight through?
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